(http://www.gartner.

com/home)

LICENSED FOR
DISTRIBUTION

Magic Quadrant for Mobile App Development Platforms

Published: 15 June 2016 ID: G00290469
Analyst(s): Jason Wong, Van L. Baker, Adrian Leow, Joachim Herschmann

Summary
Mobile apps are at the front line of the digital revolution, and MADPs are becoming the main
driver accelerating digital transformation in businesses. We evaluate the major vendors and
key trends in this space to help IT leaders select platforms that best match their business and
technical needs.

Strategic Planning Assumption

By 2020, more than 75% of enterprises will have adopted at least one mobile app development
platform to accelerate their digital business transformation strategy, up from approximately
33% in 2015.

Market Denition/Description
As organizations move toward digitization of their businesses, mobile apps have become
indispensable to consumers and business professionals alike. In most cases, they are the
preferred channel for interaction and engagement with information and services. While
demand for apps rises steeply, mobile app development in organizations simply cannot keep
pace due to a deciency of skills, insufcient resources, lack of mobile-friendly integration,
and an inability to scale the technology and processes. These challenges are what a mobile
app development platform (MADP) is designed to address.
The MADP market offers tools, technologies, components and services that together
constitute the critical elements of an integrated platform. The MADP enables an organization
to design, develop, test, deploy, distribute, manage and analyze a portfolio of cross-platform
mobile apps running on a range of devices and addressing the requirements of diverse use
cases, including external-facing and internal-facing scenarios. Over recent years, a substantial
part of the development process has required server-side support which we classify as
mobile back-end services delivered (potentially) via a mobile back end as a service (MBaaS)
component (see "Layer MADP and RMAD Over Mobile App Services for a Potent Mobile App
Strategy" for a broader classication of the mobile app development market).

Magic Quadrant
Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Mobile App Development Platforms

Source: Gartner (June 2016)

Vendor Strengths and Cautions

Adobe
Adobe is in the Leaders quadrant this year, based on the strength and mind share of its
entrenched user base with designers and marketers as well as web developers. Adobe is
executing well with enhancements to Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Mobile and shows
strong vision in meeting the needs of its core market.
AEM Mobile is Adobe's MADP; however, its full mobile app development capabilities require
the use of other Adobe products, including Adobe Marketing Cloud and the new Adobe.io
offering. Many of the back-end data integration and services capabilities are tightly integrated

with the Adobe Marketing Cloud, such as messaging (push, in-app, SMS, email) and location
services. Adobe's mobile analytics are also very strong, offering extensive enhancements to
facilitate personalization and targeting for apps developed using AEM Mobile.
AEM Mobile supports both native and hybrid app development. The native runtime can be
extended using the Apache Cordova framework for custom functionality, if needed. The
runtime is integrated with the Adobe Mobile Services software development kit (SDK), which
provides access to the Adobe Marketing Cloud services. This integration allows developers to
drag and drop content and services into mobile apps built using their visual development
environment (as used by marketing professionals). The former Adobe Digital Publishing
Solution has been incorporated into AEM Mobile and allows for the integration of managed
content into mobile apps built using AEM Mobile.
Adobe offers AEM Mobile as part of a single-tenant AEM managed services environment or as
a SaaS-based AEM cloud management service. Typical costs for an initial mobile
development project, in terms of direct licensing fees and related payments to the vendor, are
in the enterprise tier of more than $100,000 per year (see Note 1).
STRENGTHS

Adobe has a leading position in the business-to-consumer (B2C) market, with creative tools
in addition to its analytics and marketing cloud solutions. AEM Mobile leverages these
strengths and builds on them with strong native and hybrid app development capabilities.
The AEM Mobile tool offers a low-barrier, visual drag-and-drop environment and has
incorporated Adobe's Digital Publishing Solution into the product to facilitate integration and
management of content assets. This enables a complete workow from prototype to app
creation.
AEM Mobile incorporates a subset of Adobe Mobile Services, allowing marketers to
measure engagement with the AEM Mobile apps, engage with the audience through push
and in-app messaging, and track the success of audience acquisition campaigns.
CAUTIONS

AEM Mobile employs an Adobe-centric development construct across multiple tools that
may be unfamiliar to developers that have not worked extensively with Adobe's Marketing
Cloud.
The Adobe.io developer portal, which exposes the hosted services based on Adobe's cloud
offerings, is a relatively new and unproven offering primarily aimed at B2C-oriented mobile
apps.
Integration into back-end systems of record may require investment in the Adobe Marketing
Cloud and Adobe Analytics to deliver the full functionality needed within the desired mobile
apps.

Appcelerator

Appcelerator (now part of Axway) is in the Niche Players quadrant this year, based on
inconsistent market execution and traction, though its 2015 corporate issues have been
stabilized by the acquisition by Axway in January 2016. Although it has strong products and
technology, Appcelerator's vision for meeting key emerging market needs, particularly the
rapid mobile app development (RMAD) component, has lagged.
One of the long-standing independent MADP vendors, Appcelerator has achieved a level of
stability through acquisition by Axway (an API management and integration provider). It gains
new sales channels, additional resources and expanded integration tools from the Axway side
that can be leveraged for additional enterprise capabilities. The Appcelerator platform offers
JavaScript-based cross-platform mobile app development capabilities, including mobile backend service functionality and API creation via Arrow and Arrow Builder respectively.
Appcelerator has nurtured a community of more than 800,000 developers that use its
Titanium open-source SDK for cross-platform mobile development with native API support.
Appcelerator's development environment, Appcelerator Studio, offers functionality for building,
testing and publishing native apps across mobile platforms leveraging the Titanium SDK and
Hyperloop framework. Still relatively immature, its App Designer provides a visual design
canvas for cross-platform design and development. Appcelerator Arrow provides mobile backend service functionality for a broad range of services running in the Arrow Cloud including
push notications, location and storage and is also open to other third-party development
tools. Through OEM partnerships, Appcelerator Arrow also provides a broad range of analytics
capabilities, including portfolio dashboards, real-time analytics and information about event
funnels to support management of the app portfolio.
Appcelerator's pricing is based on three different editions of its Studio product and is tied to
developer seats per month. Its Arrow offering is priced on a monthly subscription, based on
usage variables. Typical costs for an initial mobile app development project in terms of
direct licensing fees and related costs are at the low end of the spectrum (less than $25,000
per year) just for developer licenses, and more than that for projects leveraging mobile backend service features (see Note 1).
STRENGTHS

Appcelerator offers a strong set of developer-oriented front-end tools and frameworks,

mobile back-end services, and API creation and management capabilities that can address
a wide variety of mobile app use cases.
Appcelerator has successfully built a large and growing community of developers that
leverage the open-source Titanium framework, which helps Appcelerator gain support from
the bottom up in enterprises.
The Appcelerator platform provides a fully integrated and automated testing capability for
fast, thorough assessments of app quality and behavior across platforms.
CAUTIONS

As a result of the Axway acquisition, there is the potential for accelerated growth of the
Appcelerator platform; however, there is some overlap in API management, mobile back-end
services and integration platform as a service (iPaaS) capabilities that might cause some
disruption from a product perspective.
Some Appcelerator customers indicate a slower-than-native performance for its apps,
although there is the ability to write native modules to add some new features or to support
certain third-party libraries for a given OS platform.
The Appcelerator platform is starting to address low-code requirements, but the Studio user
interface (UI) editor is still a code-centric approach to developing mobile apps that falls
short of the more seamless RMAD approach expected by mobile development teams to
accelerate their work.

Appian
Appian is in the Niche Players quadrant this year, based on its focus on enterprises looking to
rapidly deploy process-driven and case-driven multichannel apps. Appian is executing well in
its market, but has not extended its vision to address broader MADP requirements such a
mobile-oriented visual UI designer, broader push notications support, and more sophisticated
app analytics.
Appian's heritage lies in the business process management (BPM) space, which is obvious
from the standards used in its mobile platform such as Business Process Model and
Notation (BPMN), which is designed to provide a communication medium between business
and IT for rapid solution delivery. Cross-platform apps can be created using the Appian SelfAssembling Interface Layer (SAIL) framework, which takes declarative UI denitions to
generate dynamic, interactive user experiences. Appian's Interface Designer tool encourages
collaboration between business and IT, being built on a visual composition methodology. This
enables business units to view and understand design concepts in order to ensure that
solutions meet business requirements. This design environment provides a single user
experience (UX) for multiple apps, which reduces development time and end-user training
while generating hybrid apps using proprietary app containers for multiple devices and form
factors.
On the back end, apps are supported by a broad range of cloud-based services, including
authentication, role-based app security controls, ofine sync, and storage services. APIs are
available to expose these functions (via REST) for consumption by custom apps. Appian's
Web API designer allows developers to create and expose APIs to other systems, as well as
for other systems to trigger changes or actions within Appian. The Appian development
process is supported by a good range of application life cycle management (ALM)
capabilities, including validation testing and continuous integration. In addition, Appian
introduced its App Market during the past year, where extensions are available that have been
created by Appian and its partners. These extensions are design objects that form the UIs,
logic, processes and data interactions that have been built on Appian's platform.

Appian's licensing objective is to include mobile as part of all its engagements. This is
supported by a range of cost models based on: monthly per named user, per occasional user,
and app-specic user fees. These user-based prices include both front-end and back-end
services and the typical project size is at the enterprise end of the scale (more than $100,000
per year; see Note 1).
STRENGTHS

Appian's process modeler and rules designer tools offers a visual composition approach to
minimize the need for coding and decreases app development overheads
The Appian platform uses an interpreted development model that is ideal for agile
development and deployment. The SAIL architecture enables developers to easily make
changes to app design and logic without disrupting core systems or requiring a
redistribution of mobile apps to devices.
In Appian's cloud architecture, mobile apps may be linearly scaled to support high user
loads.
CAUTIONS

Appian's app layout designer does not provide mobile-specic previews of the app as it is
being built; instead, the app needs to be deployed to a physical device in order to view.
Appian is better-suited to process-centric and case-management-driven apps; its UI
capabilities are not as extensive as those of other MADPs.
Although Appian has updated its pricing model, customers with larger deployments have
found its pricing a bit rigid and, at times, costly.

Backbase
Backbase is in the Niche Players quadrant this year, based on its primary focus in the nancial
services vertical and its lack of execution across other industries. Its vision for MADP
capabilities has also lagged behind other vendors that have expanded their visual RMAD
tooling and back-end service capabilities such as mobile analytics and test integration.
The Backbase Customer Experience Platform (CXP) offers HTML5-based cross-platform
development capabilities, and also supports open-source NativeScript, React Native, and
native iOS and Android technologies. A front-end client app is created using the Mobile SDK,
which is a collection of components enabling organizations to build, test, deploy and manage
mobile apps based on out-of-the-box templates and "widgets" that are used as a starting point
for building (or extending) mobile apps. To assist with rapid app development and scale up
app development initiatives, CXP Manager offers a GUI for business users without
programming skills to edit mobile apps including functions such as content editing, layout
and navigation, setting targeting rules to run sales campaigns and integrated analytics, and
A/B multivariate testing.
The Mobile SDK acts as a bridge between CXP Server (mobile back-end services) and the
mobile app. CXP Server provides robust services for security and permission management,
enterprise app integration, content management, personalization and targeting, workow,

publishing, and editorial management. All CXP Server services are exposed via a new API
gateway based on Zuul to deliver REST endpoints.
Backbase CXP enterprise licensing has two options server and client instances based on
the number of registered app users, or an unlimited end-user license based on the number of
CXP server instances. Data center and cloud pricing is per user, per month. Typical costs for
an initial mobile development project, in terms of direct licensing fees and related payments to
the vendor, are at the enterprise end of the spectrum (more than $100,000 per year; see Note
1).
STRENGTHS

Backbase's app security is robust with out-of-the-box communication supporting JavaScript

Object Notation (JSON) Web Tokens (JWT) with different encryption methods. Its Mobile
SDK provides access to device-specic authentication features, such as Apple's Touch ID.
Backbase separates the app life cycle into a development track and a business track, which
streamlines app updates by allowing business users to refresh and publish new content
without having to redeploy the app.
Backbase supports standard native technologies, common web technologies and popular
Model-View-Controller (MVC) frameworks.
CAUTIONS

While CXP Manager provides a GUI interface, it lacks the ability to create a mobile app from
scratch using low-code or no-code techniques common in RMAD tools. The widgets are
cross-platform UI components requiring coding by developers and need Cascading Style
Sheets (CSS) styling to maintain the native look and feel.
Backbase does not use its own cross-platform integrated development environment (IDE) to
create native apps developers must be familiar with native IDEs, such as Xcode for iOS
and Android Studio for Android, to create an initial native shell.
Backbase has a strong presence in the nancial services sector, but its presence in other
industries is not as established and proven, particularly in terms of back-end connectors.

DSI
DSI is in the Niche Players quadrant this year, based on its market focus on mobile supply
chain use cases including data-driven processes and those with signicant mobile-tomachine requirements. It has shown good vision in keeping up with enterprise MADP
requirements, but has not demonstrated signicant growth outside its core supply chain apps
although it has started to address the B2C side of the market.
The DSI Mobile Enterprise Platform has traditionally integrated with existing enterprise
systems to mobilize and optimize supply chain functions, but DSI can create consumer-grade
app user experiences by combining its supply chain expertise with new UX design capabilities
provided through its Wire framework. DSI provides UX designers and UI developers with
tooling and its Wire XML-based language to rapidly design and create a rich UX while
maintaining the full manageability and security of DSI's supply chain solutions. DSI also

released a new HTML5 client, with full app life cycle management that leverages the DSI visual
forms editor that can build browser-resident apps for quick app launching improving app
performance without requiring the app to fully reload.
DSI also introduced its Transaction Analytics dashboard, which allows administrators to have
a central visual representation for monitoring activity, as well as adding App Analytics to
report on app usage information such as activity abandonment. DSI offers transaction-based
connectivity into major systems of record with validated and certied mobile-optimized
functional interfaces. In addition, DSI supports RESTful APIs, SOAP-based web services and
the use of custom connectors. DSI offers private, hybrid and public cloud (via Amazon Web
Services [AWS]) deployment options, but the vast majority of its customers have deployed onpremises.
DSI has a tiered, per-user pricing structure, with an option for casually connected users.
Additionally, application server instances are priced per production server for on-premises
deployments only. There is no charge associated with the development tooling itself. DSI also
requires licensing of the requisite connector interfaces into back-end systems. Typical costs
for an initial mobile development project, in terms of direct licensing fees and related
payments to the vendor, are in the enterprise tier of pricing (more than $100,000 per year; see
Note 1).
STRENGTHS

DSI has enhanced its UI capabilities through the Wire technology (through its acquisition of
RareWire in 2015). It has also created a plug-in to the popular Sketch design tool to generate
Wire code and upload directly to its Application Studio for rapid prototyping and
development.
DSI offers one of the broader back-end integration capabilities and sets of certied
connectors available in the MADP market, with many independent software vendors using
and reselling its connectors.
Customer feedback consensus was highly positive regarding DSI's responsiveness to
customer issues and suggestions, as well as the high quality of its technical staff across the
management, development and support teams.
CAUTIONS

Though customers have expressed satisfaction with DSI's customer support, they have also
experienced issues around shortages in resource availability for DSI's professional services,
especially on larger projects that have higher demands.
With the addition of Wire, the DSI platform has the potential for broader use cases, but the
domain expertise of the company and its partners is primarily focused on supply chain
solutions.
DSI has a relatively small presence and ecosystem outside of the U.S., so nding service
delivery partners may be a challenge for some customers not in the U.S.

Embarcadero

Embarcadero is in the Niche Players quadrant this year, based on its focus on the C, C++ and
Pascal developer segments which do not represent the signicant parts of the mobile
developer market. Its vision for MADP capabilities also lag behind the market, because of a
lack of RMAD support and comprehensive mobile back-end services.
In October 2015, Idera (a provider of database and infrastructure management software)
acquired Embarcadero for its technologies in database management and app development.
For MADP, Embarcadero offers RAD Studio 10 cross-platform development tools geared
toward sophisticated developers using the Object Pascal and C/C++ languages, along with
support for HTML5 and JavaScript. RAD Studio supports natively compiled apps that can be
deployed to iOS, Android and Windows tablets (Microsoft Surface Pro), as well as desktop
Windows and Mac OS X. RAD Studio provides true compilation to machine code without a
virtual machine layer or middleware, unlike most other multiplatform approaches.
RAD Studio 10's newer framework supports Windows, Android and iOS. A key feature update
in RAD Studio 10 is support for Windows 10. Features such as Windows 10 notications can
also be called through a wrapper for Windows Runtime (WinRT) APIs. Embarcadero is also
addressing the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) market and has added enhancements in the
new RAD Studio 10 that include a new TBeaconDevice class for turning a device on one of the
supported platforms into a beacon, and also improved Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) support.
Embarcadero offers two middleware solutions for on-premises or virtual private cloud hosting
to create and manage remote APIs one is SDK-based and the other contains prebuilt
services with a runtime fee. Embarcadero also provides REST client connectors to connect to
virtually any back end. Embarcadero's pricing is multitier, catering to enterprise IT groups
seeking development and deployment licenses as well as separate licensing for the hundreds
of independent software vendors using the platform to build apps for resale. Typical costs for
an initial mobile development project, in terms of direct licensing fees and related payments to
the vendor, are at the low end of the spectrum (less than $25,000 per year; see Note 1).
STRENGTHS

RAD Studio 10 brings new Windows 10 platform features into enterprise apps. New VCL UI
controls, WinRT and Universal Windows Platform (UWP) components and APIs give
developers access to new Windows 10 services.
RAD Studio 10 has a focus on the IoT and wearables, with features such as App Tethering,
Bluetooth LE, and proximity-awareness beacons to add both proximity and location
awareness to existing apps.
Embarcadero has more than 200 partners that develop app components and add-ons to
improve developer productivity.
CAUTIONS

RAD Studio does not have wide adoption and addresses a limited segment of developers
mainly Delphi/Object Pascal and C++ programmers. Enterprises without such developers
may have a hard time nding resources familiar with these tools.

Embarcadero's platform is lacking some aspects of full life cycle support, including device
cloud testing and robust mobile back-end service capabilities that drive the management
and orchestration of integration APIs and mobile services.
Some customers have expressed concern that Embarcadero's product release is so quick
that software quality is affected. Additionally, long-term support for MADP under Idera is
uncertain given its focus on infrastructure rather than development.

IBM
IBM is in the Leaders quadrant this year, based on its strong execution in the global market,
particularly in larger enterprises and in its partnership with Apple, which has yielded
tremendous brand awareness and some high-prole deployments. IBM's vision continues to
be very strong as it relates to the app life cycle management of mobile apps and DevOps
requirements.
The IBM MobileFirst Platform is a comprehensive MADP spanning the full software
development life cycle and offering elements addressing app design, development, testing,
deployment and management for mobile hybrid apps (using Cordova). An extension of the
IBM MobileFirst Platform is IBM MobileFirst for iOS, where IBM has partnered with Apple to
develop more than 100 template apps with specic iOS feature support. IBM has added new
App Builder and API Connect products to enhance front-end and back-end productivity. The
MobileFirst App Builder gives developers a visual development tool that generates native
mobile apps, along with Objective-C and Android Java code that can be edited in the native
IDEs.
The MobileFirst platform leverages IBM's Bluemix cloud services for advanced mobile backend services (such as Cloudant storage, new mobile content manager, and Watson services)
to create and deploy highly contextual mobile apps. IBM has also created a Swift developer
sandbox environment that allows developers to create and test server-side components to
complement front-end Swift development.
IBM charges client device and app license fees for its MobileFirst Platform software, plus
software subscription and support fees. Bluemix cloud services are available with both payas-you-go and enterprise licenses. Typical costs for an initial mobile development project (in
terms of direct licensing fees and related payments to the vendor) are at the enterprise end of
the spectrum (more than $100,000 per year; see Note 1).
STRENGTHS

IBM's MobileFirst for iOS has delivered a strong portfolio of mobile apps that can give many
enterprises the ability to jump-start their app development efforts by utilizing well-designed,
well-thought-out apps that address known pain points in selected industries.
The IBM MobileFirst App Builder has added a strong visual development tool to the platform
while retaining the ability for the developer to continue to utilize other third-party tools
supported by IBM MobileFirst, such as Xamarin.

IBM shows strong vision in supporting full stack JavaScript and Swift, two of the more
popular languages in mobile, which puts IBM in a unique position to build an extensive
developer ecosystem.
CAUTIONS

The IBM MobileFirst Platform is a complex development, deployment and management

environment that may be more than many enterprises need especially if they are in the
early stages of mobile app development.
Developing mobile apps with IBM can get expensive, because it often leads to additional
investment in professional services as well as potential product investments such as
Watson services and other Bluemix services.
IBM's efforts to advance Swift in the open-source community for server-side app
development are new and not yet proven; success will depend on adoption of developers
beyond the Apple developer community.

Kony
Kony is in the Leaders quadrant this year, based on its continued strong execution globally
particularly in building strong partnerships with system integrators, including a global alliance
with Cognizant and its completeness of offering. Being the largest independent MADP
provider, Kony's vision also continues to be strong in relation to both the richness of its frontend development and its forward-thinking back-end services and integration capabilities.
The Kony Mobility Platform is composed of Kony Visualizer and Kony MobileFabric. Kony
Visualizer offers a sophisticated visual development environment, with cross-platform design
elements and controls that can be manipulated on a canvas editor that allows for a negrained UI layout and design, including an Apple Watch canvas. It incorporates the previous
Kony Studio Eclipse-based IDE, so designers and developers can collaborate in the same
environment. Kony Visualizer creates apps for mobile and wearable devices, as well as web
apps for desktop. Kony provides proprietary native app containers for cross-platform support,
and the platform autogenerates 100% of native iOS and Android API coverage. Kony has also
added the ability to import Adobe Photoshop les into Kony Visualizer, which converts layers
into mobile app elements.
Kony MobileFabric can be deployed and managed across any combination of public cloud,
private cloud or on-premises implementations including a partnership with AWS for
deployment. Services delivered via Kony MobileFabric include data integration and
orchestration, authentication, ofine sync, security token management, analytics and more.
The Kony MobileFabric offering supports a wide range of integration technologies (including
REST and JSON as well as SOAP, XML, Open Data Protocol [OData]). Kony MobileFabric also
includes the capabilities needed to manage a full software development life cycle, including
integration with Soasta and AWS for test automation and Apteligent for extended analytics,
plus support for continuous integration, version and release management.

Kony's pricing strategy is to build a sustainable software tool/platform business through

different pricing models, with per app or user-based pricing. Typical costs for an initial mobile
development project, in terms of direct licensing fees and related payments to the vendor, are
at the enterprise end of the spectrum (more than $100,000 per year; see Note 1).
STRENGTHS

Kony Visualizer delivers a very strong set of capabilities that offers a feature-rich visual
development environment in addition to supporting development teams using JavaScript.
Kony MobileFabric has added the ability to create, bundle and orchestrate APIs to create an
object-based interaction layer that abstracts integration to back-end APIs for greater
exibility and productivity.
Kony offers one of the most secure platforms, with various certications including Defense
Information Systems Agency (DISA) certication. The platform also embeds advanced
technology to add cryptography, obfuscation and app hardening.
CAUTIONS

The Kony Mobility Platform is comprehensive and may be more than some enterprises
need, especially in the early stages of mobile app development activity for simpler apps.
While Kony Visualizer is a powerful tool, it requires training for nondevelopers to learn its
sophisticated feature set. Some customers have commented on the need to improve
training and documentation for Kony Visualizer and Kony MobileFabric services.
The Kony platform typically requires professional services to set up and implement, which
may result in a higher initial cost of ownership than other MADP offerings.

Mendix
Mendix is in the Visionaries quadrant this year, based on its growing capabilities to support
the mobility needs of lines of business as well as IT. It offers a broad development platform
and continues to show good vision with respect to MADP capabilities.
Mendix is primarily known as an application platform as a service (aPaaS) vendor for
supporting digital business initiatives from ideation to management of applications across all
channels. In the context of the broader Mendix offering, Mendix's MADP capabilities enable
rapid model-driven development of hybrid HTML5-based apps that execute within the Apache
Cordova container. Process-based models support a visual, codeless development process
that can be extended with functionality written in JavaScript and Java code. Mendix focuses
on the collaboration between business and IT, offering a portal for sharing projects, capturing
requirements, tracking sprints and monitoring deployments. The Mendix Business Modeler
allows nonprogrammers to add complex business logic to the processes in an app without
having to write code. The Mendix platform provides a model API and platform SDK that give
access to the core app artifacts and allow for publishing all app models in an open-model
specication.

As a member of the Cloud Foundry Foundation, Mendix supports Cloud Foundry-hosted cloud
options as well as those hosted by AWS and Microsoft Azure; it also offers on-premises and
hybrid options. The platform offers data integration capabilities for OData, SOAP and REST, as
well as enterprise connectors. Its mobile back-end service capabilities include push
notications, storage, identity management, and newly added mobile ofine support including
static resource storage, read access to data, data entry caching and automatic image
synchronization. Mendix also offers a curated App Store that contains app widgets, modules
and components, with contributions made by partners and customers that have been vetted
by the Mendix team.
Mendix's pricing model is based on named users per app and does not charge additional fees
based on service usage. Mendix provides two commercial editions for end customers: Pro
and Enterprise. Engagements are typically in the midsize and enterprise tiers (greater than
$25,000 per year; see Note 1).
STRENGTHS

Mendix has a strong cloud focus and architecture based on Cloud Foundry, and is
particularly suited to organizations seeking a cloud-native solution.
Mendix's model-driven development provides a high-productivity tool for business analysts
and developers to create apps without the need for code, including the availability of
industry-specic solution accelerators.
Mendix's App Store provides a useful repository of prebuilt app components and add-ons to
accelerate web and mobile app development.
CAUTIONS

Although Mendix offers capabilities to discover and connect to APIs, it currently offers a
limited set of ready-to-use connectors to popular packaged enterprise application and
service providers.
The Mendix platform still has limited mobile analytics capabilities, which is becoming
essential for supporting DevOps and business decision making. However, Mendix integrates
with third-party platforms (such as New Relic and AppDynamics) for this specic need.
The Mendix platform added mobile ofine support, but the complex conict resolution
handling necessary for transaction-oriented apps requires manual modeling of workows.

Microsoft
Microsoft is in the Leaders quadrant this year, based on strong execution with its Azure and
Xamarin offerings within the sizable .NET developer market. Its vision for MADP has also
expanded drastically with its integration of Xamarin products and continued enhancements of
Azure's App Service and DevOps capabilities for mobile.
Microsoft's MADP is a broad omnichannel offering based mainly on Visual Studio, Azure App
Service, and the Xamarin platform that was acquired in early 2016. Hybrid apps are built using
Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova. Native apps can be built using C# and .NET with
Xamarin in Visual Studio, which is now free and open-source as part of the .NET Foundation.

Developers can use Xamarin.Forms to build cross-platform UI elements for greater code
reuse. Citizen developers, such as line-of-business analysts, can create hybrid apps with
Microsoft PowerApps, using a no-code authoring tool (PowerApps is fully generally available
in 2H16).
Microsoft's Azure App Service delivers mobile back-end services on multiple client-side OSs.
Azure App Service includes capabilities such as push notications, ofine sync, identity
management, SQL and NoSQL database integration, social media integration, and location
services. Additionally, Microsoft offers strong DevOps support for mobile: through HockeyApp
analytics as well as Xamarin Test Cloud, which are both fully integrated into Visual Studio
Team Services.
Microsoft's pricing for Visual Studio is based on a per-developer seat subscription; Xamarin is
now included in the license. Azure App Service has ve different tiers of licensing and is based
on usage. Typical costs for an initial mobile development project, in terms of direct licensing
fees and related payments to the vendor, start at the low end of the spectrum (less than
$25,000 per year; see Note 1), but can increase signicantly depending on the cloud services
employed.
STRENGTHS

With Microsoft's MADP, Xamarin developers can design app interfaces to create fully native
UIs customized for each platform using fully featured Android, iOS and Windows 10
Universal Windows Platform (UWP) designers.
For hybrid apps, developers can select their preferred JavaScript frameworks and
workows, which can integrate with Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova.
Microsoft is a solid choice for enterprises with a signicant investment and skills in the
Microsoft ecosystem: Visual Studio, .NET and Windows-based back-end systems.
CAUTIONS

Microsoft has struggled to attract large numbers of cross-platform developers to its

development platform beyond its existing .NET developer base.
Microsoft's MADP is a collection of developer-oriented tools and has not generated
awareness or traction with higher-level line-of-business buyers.
The PowerApps RMAD tool shows promise, but will remain in beta until the second half of
2016, so it has yet to be seen whether broad adoption of PowerApps will be realized.

Oracle
Oracle is in the Challengers quadrant this year, based on its positive market execution and
traction with its Mobile Cloud Service (MCS) offering and a new focus on mobility at a
corporate strategy level. Its RMAD vision and capabilities are still behind those of other
MADPs and some features have been delayed in coming to market.
Oracle's Mobile Platform offering is starting to gain traction across its considerable customer
base as it begins to mature. The Oracle Mobile Platform offers a suite of products
spearheaded by its MCS for mobile back-end services, its JavaScript Extension Toolkit (JET)

for web development, and its Mobile Application Framework (MAF) for cross-platform hybrid
app development using Java-based JDeveloper IDE, Eclipse and Apache Cordova. Having
been released in beta during late 2015, Oracle's cloud-based no-code app development tool,
Mobile Application Accelerator (MAX), is nally publicly available with the release of MCS 2.0
in May 2016.
Internally, Oracle has used MAF to create and extend mobile apps for its enterprise application
suites, such as Siebel, Oracle E-Business and JD Edwards. For constructing brand-new apps
with custom back ends, customers use Oracle MCS which can work with MAF, JET or a
variety of front-end development tools, including a Xamarin SDK to support C# developers.
Oracle MCS also offers robust app life cycle management, including built-in versioning,
automated deployment across environments, and hooks into continuous integration and
testing tools.
Oracle's MAF, JET and MAX products are available as part of MCS licensing. Pricing for MCS is
based on the number of API calls regardless of app or user count, while on-premises platform
pricing is based on server CPUs and client licensing depending on either the number of users
or the number of apps. Typical costs for an initial mobile development project, in terms of
direct licensing fees and related payments to the vendor, are at the enterprise end of the
spectrum (more than $100,000 per year; see Note 1).
STRENGTHS

Oracle has elevated its Oracle Mobile Platform to one of its key corporate pillars, which
means greater resources and focus in terms of product and go-to-market strategy.
After just one year in the market, Oracle MCS has become a worthy mobile back-end service
offering, with robust Node.js-based API creation and management, ofine support, and core
mobile services such as push notications and analytics.
Oracle offers extensive integration options to its own broad enterprise application portfolio,
including more than 160 packaged mobile apps in Apple's App Store, as well as connecting
to third-party systems using Oracle middleware and service bus technologies.
CAUTIONS

While Oracle's MAF has been in the market for years, its other mobile offerings are still
relatively new and some customers have expressed some growing pains as Oracle
continues to integrate and improve the platform.
Oracle's long-awaited MAX visual app development product has been made generally
available in May 2016, but the functionality of this rst release (limited device integration, for
example) lags behind that of other more mature offerings.
Oracle's cloud deployments are not as extensive as those of other providers, with more than
two-thirds of its mobile customers utilizing its legacy MAF solution across both on-premises
and cloud environments. Moreover, its MCS offering is available only on Oracle's public
cloud infrastructure.

OutSystems

OutSystems is in the Visionaries quadrant this year, based on its strong capability to support
the needs of IT as well as line-of-business users. Its vision for MADP shows a strong
alignment with the needs of scaling app development through RMAD capabilities and citizen
development efforts.
OutSystems provides a visual, low-code rapid app development and delivery platform for
developing mobile hybrid (using Apache Cordova) and web-based HTML5 apps. It uses an
indirectly executed metadata-driven model to generate code, which ultimately drives the
execution of the app. OutSystems Platform allows users to visually create cross-platform UXs,
including device-specic customizations for different target devices. The workow modelling
capabilities of this solution allow users to add complex business logic without having to write
code. It is also possible to leverage prebuilt apps and components that are available free in
the OutSystems Forge online repository to jump-start mobile projects.
For back-end development, OutSystems Platform allows developers to discover, consume and
orchestrate multiple data sources, cloud services, enterprise systems and social connectors.
Functionality can be exposed via APIs to third-party front-end tools, and deployed as C# or
Java back-end code for full control as part of a standards-based server stack. OutSystems
supports a continuous integration philosophy and provides integrated testing across
devices/channels as well as management of all services and apps across platforms and
channels.
OutSystems licensing is usage-based and determined by both the number of registered end
users and the number of consumed tables, screens and APIs. Typical costs for an initial
mobile development project, in terms of direct licensing fees and related payments to the
vendor, are in the midrange portion of the spectrum (more than $25,000 per year and less than
$100,000 per year; see Note 1).
STRENGTHS

OutSystems Platform uses a model-driven approach to congure the app layers UIs, data
model, business processes, integration workows, web services and APIs enabling highproductivity development. Developers can incorporate their own custom Java or C# code or
libraries, and compose them as part of the model, as well as custom JavaScript (and CSS)
for the front end.
OutSystems supports a citizen developer approach and provides a number of sample apps
and industry frameworks that demonstrate how different components can quickly be
brought together to build an app.
OutSystems Platform includes a number of APIs and offers API discovery with usage
controlled by organization policies with centralized security governance. It also enables a
granular management of user accounts and access roles.
CAUTIONS

OutSystems Platform's metadata model to describe the behavior of an app does not give
the developer complete control over the generated code, as it limits the developer's ability to
dene how code is generated from the metadata model.

While OutSystems' model-driven approach to development accelerates the time to a

solution, developers experienced in more traditional app development approaches may
struggle. They would need to understand how to balance the use of custom code and
libraries against using the model.
While OutSystems allows app deployment to the OutSystems cloud, on-premises
environments, or to other IaaS providers (such as Microsoft Azure or AWS), there is currently
no option to directly deploy apps to Cloud Foundry-based environments.

Pegasystems
Pegasystems is in the Visionaries quadrant this year, based on its improved market execution
and mobile product enhancements. Its vision for MADP is driven by its BPM and CRM
heritage, but has evolved signicantly to address simpler mobile app use cases as well as
complex transactional app requirements.
Pegasystems' MADP offering is built into its Pega 7 Platform, which includes capabilities for
BPM, case management and predictive analytics. As part of Pega 7, Pegasystems introduced
a fully integrated Pega Express RMAD tool that allows nondevelopers to build cross-platform
mobile apps using a visual, guided user ow and out-of-the-box screen and workow
components. Apps from Pega Express can also be further rened by developers using the
model-driven Pega Designer Studio development environment, which provides deeper
interfaces to its MADP functions such as back-end connectors, API creation, service
orchestration and more. Both Pega Express and Designer Studio can create hybrid apps that
run in the proprietary Pega app container, or HTML5 web apps for mobile and desktop.
Pegasystems' mobile app back-end service support development using Xcode and Android
Studio, as well as popular third-party front-end development tools and frameworks such as
jQuery Mobile and Xamarin. Pegasystems offers its platform in a public, hybrid or private
cloud conguration as well as on-premises; nearly all its customers are on hybrid cloud
deployments. Pegasystems continues to offer strong security certications, including: Federal
Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 Level 2 for encryption; U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) 21 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 11 for electronic signatures;
and European Union Data Privacy.
Pega Express is offered as a free SaaS product, while the ongoing platform cost is based on
per user per month, and on-premises deployments are typically priced as term or perpetual
licenses. Typical costs for an initial mobile development project, in terms of direct licensing
fees and related payments to the vendor, are at the enterprise end of the spectrum (more than
$100,000 per year; see Note 1).
STRENGTHS

Pegasystems offers one of the most intuitive, yet powerful, visual and model-driven
development platforms for building not only mobile apps, but also desktop and mobile Web
apps.

Pegasystems' platform offers a wide array of enterprise data connectors and enables a
virtualized data layer that can transform any data source to a common data model for
mobile development using its tools or other third-party front-end tools.
Pega 7 enables citizen development with no-code app creation, while applying stringent
development guardrails and maintaining strict data governance and security.
CAUTIONS

Pegasystems has not effectively targeted or supported independent mobile app developers
and its mobile developer community is nascent compared with those of other major
vendors.
Pega Express and Designer Studio make development more approachable for
nonprogrammers, but there is still a learning curve for its tools in understanding the casedriven data model when building more-sophisticated apps. Training has been cited as a
shortcoming by some Pegasystems' customers.
Pegasystems' pricing has been simplied to address smaller initial app deployments, but in
general its pricing model is more opaque and complex than those of other vendors.

Progress
Progress is in the Visionaries quadrant this year, based on its enhancements for supporting
more robust enterprise requirements, although not yet showing signicant enterprise traction.
Its vision is strong for MADP, but it needs to demonstrate a more cohesive message and
solution not just for developers but also for business stakeholders.
Progress' Telerik Platform provides a suite of products that addresses the entire mobile app
development life cycle. This platform supports development of hybrid apps using JavaScript,
HTML5 and Cordova (including a curated repository of plug-ins) with its AppBuilder IDE, or
with plug-ins to Visual Studio and Sublime Text. AppBuilder provides visual screen designing
capabilities, but can also support Angular, Ionic, Kendo UI Mobile, jQuery Mobile and other UI
frameworks. For building native mobile apps, AppBuilder utilizes the open-source NativeScript
framework, which uses JavaScript to access native UI libraries' device APIs, while also
providing cross-platform UI abstractions targeting iOS, Android and Windows Phone.
Telerik Platform has comprehensive mobile back-end service capabilities that include push
notications, identity and access management, social media integration, location services,
app analytics, and monitoring. Telerik Test Studio Mobile provides tight collaboration between
quality assurance (QA) and developers for automated testing using emulators or a device
cloud of 350-plus iOS and Android devices. Progress also offers a veried plug-ins
marketplace for Cordova and NativeScript components, which takes advantage of the
platform's open-source architecture for integration with third-party software. Progress has
integrated Telerik Platform with its other offerings, including OpenEdge development
environment, Rollbase low-code aPaaS and DataDirect data connectivity.
Progress continues to target independent mobile developers with Telerik Platform, but is also
increasing penetration into the enterprise through its digital transformation initiative, launched
in May 2016. Pricing is based on a per-developer subscription and enterprise-level pricing for

back-end services. Typical costs for an initial mobile development project, in terms of direct
licensing fees and related payments to the vendor, are at the low end of the spectrum (less
than $25,000 per year), while enterprise-level pricing is more than $100,000 per year (see Note
1).
STRENGTHS

Telerik Platform is one of the few platforms that can address mobile and desktop web,
hybrid (Cordova) and native (NativeScript) app development all with its own tools.
DevOps support within Telerik Platform is very strong, with powerful app analytics, app
feedback management, app life cycle management and integrated mobile test automation.
Telerik Platform has very broad support for popular client and server-side technologies,
frameworks and programming languages, which makes it very modular and easy to work
with in a best-of-breed environment.
CAUTIONS

While Progress enjoys a large and vibrant developer community, some enterprise customers
have indicated insufcient support so ensure that mobile developers are self-sufcient.
Telerik Platform has some visual screen designing and building capabilities in its AppBuilder
tool, but it falls short of being a full-edged RMAD tool for nontechnical professionals.
While the platform is capable of ofine support, including les and images, the process of
enabling ofine app functionality and conict resolution is rather manual.

Red Hat
Red Hat is in the Visionaries quadrant this year, based on its integration of FeedHenry with
core Red Hat products and the release of the Red Hat Mobile Application Platform. Its vision
for MADP capabilities is good, particularly for cloud deployment and Node.js capabilities.
Red Hat has become a successful open-source software (OSS) vendor, with mobility
becoming an important technology direction for the company's platform strategy. The Red Hat
Mobile Application Platform is a suite of products formed through the combination of
FeedHenry's MBaaS platform and other Red Hat technology such as OpenShift Enterprise. The
Red Hat Mobile Application Platform offers a no-code Forms Builder with drag-and-drop
functionality to create simple hybrid apps that can be deployed to both mobile targets and the
web. Built-in functionality includes adding of eld validation rules and ofine capabilities. For
native and hybrid app support, Red Hat pursues an open toolkit approach with support for
native SDKs, HTML5 and Cordova, cross-platform tools including Titanium and Xamarin, as
well as JavaScript frameworks. For code-centric IDE development, JBoss Developer Studio,
which has Cordova support, is now fully integrated with the Red Hat Mobile Application
Platform.
Red Hat provides cloud capabilities both as a hosted public PaaS option (OpenShift Online)
and an on-premises version (OpenShift Enterprise) with life cycle management for both the
client apps and the cloud code via integrated Git capability. The Red Hat Mobile Application

Platform supports collaborative development across multiple teams and projects, with
centralized access control and project visibility, the ability to create reusable microservices,
build farms for generating app binaries, as well as integrated client and cloud analytics.
Red Hat licensing is built on a subscription model of its hosted service and is based on the
number of apps and the number of users per app. Developers using the Red Hat Mobile
Application Platform can use JBoss Developer Studio or bring their own tools and integrate via
Red Hat's SDKs for popular toolchains or via command-line integration. Typical costs for an
initial mobile development project, in terms of direct licensing fees and related payments to
the vendor, are at the midrange portion of the spectrum (more than $25,000 per year and less
than $100,000 per year; see Note 1).
STRENGTHS

With Red Hat's Mobile Application Platform, the combination of RMAD capabilities such as
mobile forms creation, support for code-centric development styles and SDKs for popular
frameworks supports an agile and exible approach to developing, integrating and
deploying enterprise mobile apps.
Red Hat's expertise in Linux, Java and security makes its offerings attractive to enterprises,
and although Red Hat had a late start in the mobile market, it now has a solid offering and is
gaining market share.
Red Hat's JBoss software stacks are familiar to many enterprise developers, and OpenShift
has good support for containers, testing, continuous delivery and DevOps.
CAUTIONS

Red Hat's Forms Builder workow capabilities are limited to basic forms submission
functionality; the creation of more complex workows requires the Red Hat JBoss Business
Process Management Suite.
Red Hat's Mobile Application Platform has limited built-in analytics and operational
dashboards. Third-party analytics modules such as New Relic or AppDynamics for
monitoring are needed to augment these capabilities.
Red Hat's built-in deployment and management capabilities are fairly lightweight, although
built-in integration with third-party mobile application management vendors such as
Apperian, MobileIron or AirWatch is available.

Salesforce
Salesforce is in the Leaders quadrant this year, based on its strong execution within its large
enterprise customer base and its ability to attract developers on its Heroku platform for
mobile. It continues to show strong vision for MADP as it enhances its Lightning technologies
and addresses broad mobile app use-case requirements.
Salesforce's App Cloud contains all the essential elements of a MADP to address a spectrum
of mobile web and app development needs, from line-of-business users to experienced
developers. Underpinning the newer capabilities of the multichannel App Cloud is a set of
Lightning technologies consisting of a UI Component Framework, Schema Builder, Process

Builder and App Builder. Lightning Schema Builder and Process Builder are used to build web
apps without coding, using a visual point-and-click approach, while App Builder offers a dragand-drop editor to create and deploy hybrid apps via the Salesforce1 app container. For more
custom-made app development, mobile SDKs for native iOS and Android, React Native
framework and Cordova are available, as well as watchOS and Android Wear SDKs. Ofine
support has been available for apps built using the SDKs, but now Salesforce has added
system-level ofine support for objects and les for Salesforce1 and Lightning-built apps.
App Cloud encompasses Force.com and Heroku back-end services, using Heroku Connect
and custom APIs to integrate data between them. Salesforce Connect offers OData and thirdparty API integration to bring in data objects from other back-end systems of record such as
SAP, Oracle and Microsoft. Heroku offers tight integration with GitHub and an app pipeline
process with review, staging and production stages to facilitate distributed development
across teams and continuous delivery capabilities. In addition to containerization, Heroku
Private Spaces provides complete logical network segmentation and single-tenant runtimes
for security and compliance, plus a choice of geographies and static IP addresses.
Salesforce charges for Force.com licenses based on a per-user per-month fee, while Lightning
technologies are included as part of Force.com licenses. Pricing for Heroku is based on
utilization of services, computational power required for running the apps, and other add-on
components. Typical costs for an initial mobile development project, in terms of direct
licensing fees and related payments to the vendor, can start at the low-end portion of the
spectrum (less than $25,000 per year; see Note 1), with pricing on a per-user subscription
ranging from $25 per month (per user) to $150 per month, depending on volume.
STRENGTHS

Salesforce App Cloud is supported by a very mature and growing third-party marketplace in
AppExchange.
Salesforce offers a comprehensive self-service, developer training program called Trailhead
using gamication and social features to onboard administrators, nonprogrammers and
developers onto its tools.
Salesforce's Lightning Process Builder, Schema Builder and App Builder offer compelling
tools for citizen developers to take the lead on app creation and drive Mode 2 innovation in
the enterprise.
CAUTIONS

While Salesforce Connect offers the ability to connect to third-party data sources, using
OData, and interface with APIs, Salesforce's out-of-the-box integration capabilities are not as
exible and extensive as those of other MADPs.
In the Salesforce App Cloud platform, mobile app testing support and its integration with
third-party testing services are not such a focus area as in other MADP offerings.
Customers must temper their expectations on RMAD capabilities, because the Salesforce1
container approach to deploying apps created with App Builder poses UX limitations.
Lightning app components are just starting to be delivered by Salesforce and the

AppExchange community, including the need to rebuild existing mobile apps in App
Exchange over time.

SAP
SAP is in the Challengers quadrant this year, based on its continued execution on moving
existing customers to its latest SAP Mobile Platform (SMP) and SAP Hana Cloud Platform
mobile services (HCPms) offerings. SAP's vision for its MADP has been realigned from a
corporate perspective and continues to evolve as SAP unies its acquired, partner-provided
and organically developed products to catch up in areas such as RMAD and DevOps.
SAP has made considerable new investments and updates in extending its MADP product
portfolio to support a unied mobile user experience for SAP, based on its Fiori UX. The SAP
Web IDE now takes center stage as the primary development tool for hybrid and mobile web
apps based on SAPUI5 and Kapsel plug-ins leveraging Adobe Cordova. SAP also announced
Splash and Build (expected general availability in 2H16), which are cloud-based collaborative
design and prototyping tools that can generate UI5 starter code to jump-start the development
process. SAP also supports native and third-party development tools and frameworks,
including Xamarin, Sencha and Titanium, while a partnership with Apple will create a new
Swift-based, iOS SDK optimized for SAP S/4HANA and HCP. The on-premises SMP supports
the Agentry metadata-driven development tool and also provides SAP mobile SDKs for custom
app development.
On the back end, SAP offers mobile back-end services through its HCPms. Although the onpremises SMP and HCPms deliver much of the same functionality, some differences exist
between the two such as HCPms not supporting the Agentry components. SAP also
provides strong API management capabilities and mobile management functionality through
integration with the SAP Mobile Secure Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) product; for
example, Mobile Place for app build services and distribution. Additionally, SAP has integrated
Mobile Secure with Keynote Systems to deploy apps to its device cloud for testing.
SAP's pricing for app development is based on a per-user perpetual license for SMP to build
an unlimited number of apps, or a single app perpetual license per user for a specic app.
Pricing for its HCPms is based on a per-user license for an unlimited number of apps (which
includes the SMP SDK), or is based on outbound data per month (sold in 10GB units). Typical
costs for an initial mobile development project, in terms of attributable direct costs and
related fees, are at the enterprise end of the spectrum (more than $100,000 per year; see Note
1).
STRENGTHS

The SAP Mobile Platform (SMP) is often the default choice for organizations already
invested in SAP back ends and SaaS applications, given the tight integration through Hana
Cloud Integration and prebuilt solutions for SAP modules that can signicantly accelerate
the time to market.
Fiori is central to SAP's mobile strategy and developers have a choice of more than 800 Fiori
apps as a blueprint for app conguration and development.

SAP API Management provides robust API creation, orchestration and monitoring
capabilities, based on OEM technology from Apigee.
CAUTIONS

Although hybrid, native and Fiori app architectures are consistent across SMP and HCPms
with a single programming model, SAP customers using older Syclo and Sybase mobile
products don't see the same level of support; while Splash and Build are still works in
progress to support full RMAD capabilities through integration with Web IDE.
Although SAP offers capabilities to discover and connect to APIs, it currently offers a limited
set of ready-to-use connectors to popular third-party systems and services via its SAP Hana
Cloud Integration and new Content Hub products.
SAP's diverse mobile product portfolio spanning SAPUI5, Kapsel, Web IDE, various thirdparty SDKs and the Agentry tool supports a wide range of app capabilities and
architectures, but often leads to product confusion and licensing complexity for its
customers.
Vendors Added and Dropped
We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants as markets change. As a
result of these adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant may change over time.
A vendor's appearance in a Magic Quadrant one year and not the next does not necessarily
indicate that we have changed our opinion of that vendor. It may be a reection of a change in
the market and, therefore, changed evaluation criteria, or of a change of focus by that vendor.

Added
We added two vendors this year:
OutSystems
Red Hat

Dropped
Five vendors that appeared in our 2015 version of the MADP Magic Quadrant were not
included this year:
Click Software focuses on congurable apps for eld service and therefore fails to meet the
inclusion criteria for supporting broad mobile app use cases.
Globo is no longer in business (see "What Globo's Downfall Means for Its Customer and
Buyers for MADP and EMM" ).
MicroStrategy focuses on mobility for business intelligence and therefore fails to meet the
inclusion criteria for supporting broad mobile app use cases.
Xamarin has been acquired by Microsoft and is now part of the Microsoft vendor prole.
Zebra has ceased to offer its MADP solution commercially, making it entirely open source
instead.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

Vendors in this year's Magic Quadrant met the following criteria:
Must create apps for a broad range of use cases across multiple device platforms; at a
minimum, for both iOS and Android.
Has demonstrated signicant market impact, with at least one of the following:
MADP software revenue in 2015 of more than $30 million.
Signicant global market presence and signicant volume of inquiries from Gartner enduser clients.
Has at least 10 new paying enterprise implementations in at least two of each of the
following geographic regions: North America, Latin America, EMEA, Asia/Pacic.
We excluded vendors that:
Offer only mobile back-end services, without a tool to build app front ends.
Only sell their software coupled with development/professional services where the tool is
used exclusively by company consultants.
Target only a single system platform, such as iOS only or Android only.
Do not sell a commercial enterprise offering (that is, only offer the solution as open-source
software).
Honorable Mentions
The following vendors did not meet the inclusion criteria (typically because of revenue), but
they are credible alternatives to the vendors included in this Magic Quadrant. Several of these
vendors are covered in "Market Guide for Rapid Mobile App Development Tools" and "Market
Guide for Cloud Mobile Back-End Services."
Alpha Software has robust enterprise integration capabilities and rich client-side workow
and custom logic creation in its coding-optional development tool.
AnyPresence has strong mobile integration and API development capabilities, enabling
developer productivity through a variety of front-end SDKs and app libraries.
appsFreedom has a model-driven approach to app development, robust integration to
enterprise systems, and solid core mobile services.
Kinvey has extensive mobile back-end services and integration capabilities, along with a
broad set of SDKs for various front-end development tools and frameworks.
MobileFrame is capable of producing rich client-side apps using a visual point-and-click tool
that also supports sophisticated back-end workows and integration to enterprise data
sources.

Evaluation Criteria

Ability to Execute
Product or Service: We are looking for breadth and depth of products and features across
the mobile software development life cycle including design and UX capabilities, simplicity
of development, ease of integration, richness of back-end services, and DevOps support
such as analytics, testing, version and release management.
Overall Viability: We are looking for R&D spend and resources, growth of mobile business,
and nancial protability or funding/capitalization.
Sales Execution/Pricing: We are looking for broad sales reach across geographies and
industries, effectiveness of sales such as long/short sales cycles and simplicity of
pricing models.
Market Responsiveness and Track Record: We are looking for how quickly products are
released and adopted, and how new mobile capabilities are supported both organically and
through partnerships.
Marketing Execution: We are looking for general awareness of the vendor in the market, any
negative or positive perceptions across IT and lines of business, and how easily buyers
understand its differentiators.
Customer Experience: We are looking for customer deployments across a variety of mobile
app use cases, the ability of the vendor to meet and exceed customer expectations, and the
ease of onboarding and training on the platform.
Operations: We are looking for growth in mobile business operations and stafng, stability
in leadership vision, and strength of customer service.
Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria
Evaluation Criteria

Weighting

Product or Service

High

Overall Viability

Medium

Sales Execution/Pricing

High

Market Responsiveness/Record

Medium

Marketing Execution

Low

Customer Experience

High

Operations

Low

Source: Gartner (June 2016)

Completeness of Vision
Market Understanding: We are looking for an understanding of how to address the needs of
IT and lines of business, as well as third-party developers.
Marketing Strategy: We are looking for strong brand recognition, thought-leading product
messaging, and outreach programs that cut through a very fragmented and cluttered mobile
market.
Sales Strategy: We are looking for a strong go-to-market strategy focused on selling mobile
to enterprise IT, lines of business and developers.
Offering (Product) Strategy: We are looking for a strong understanding of enterprise needs
across the mobile software development life cycle and provision of a coherent solution to
address omnichannel UX requirements, high-productivity no-code development, use of open
and standards-based technologies, security and compliance, and DevOps support through
analytics, testing, and version and release management.
Business Model: We are looking for product revenue growth, ease of doing business with
customers, and a strong partner ecosystem amplifying the vendor's go-to-market strategy.
Vertical/Industry Strategy: We are looking for differentiating capabilities built for specic
industries, vertical mobile apps, and a focused go-to-market approach for any specic
industries including use of partners.
Innovation: We are looking for technology advancements in areas such as the IoT,
wearables and omnichannel support, cloud and microservices architecture, and RMAD.
Geographic Strategy: We are looking for diverse customer deployments across
geographies, awareness within geographies across the globe, and in-country vendor
presence.
Table 2. Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria
Evaluation Criteria

Weighting

Market Understanding

High

Marketing Strategy

Low

Sales Strategy

Medium

Offering (Product) Strategy

High

Business Model

Medium

Vertical/Industry Strategy

Low

Innovation

High

Geographic Strategy

Low

Source: Gartner (June 2016)

Quadrant Descriptions

Leaders
Leaders must represent a strong combination of Ability to Execute and Completeness of
Vision. In the MADP sector, this means that Leaders are not only good at cross-platform
development, deployment and management across the full life cycle, but also have a good
vision of the multichannel enterprise, support for multiple architectures and standards, a solid
understanding of IT requirements, and scalable channels and partnerships. Leaders must
provide platforms that are easy to purchase, program, deploy and upgrade, and which can
connect to a range of back-end and cloud services from both the same vendor and from
third parties.

Challengers
Challengers in this market must have high numbers of enterprise clients, a large and growing
base of seats in deployment, and the ability to meet the needs of all departments in global
rollouts. Challengers are vendors with a history of execution in the broad market, but they may
not yet have accumulated a substantial track record in the MADP sector across a range of
scenarios. Challengers may also lack a cohesive technical or business vision or may have
lingering gaps or confusing overlaps in their products or channels to market.

Visionaries
Visionaries in this market have a compelling vision of products and the market's future, as well
as the technical direction (and necessary resources) to take them there. However, they have
not yet demonstrated that vision in one or more of the following areas: history of execution,
revenue, size of client base, diversity of solutions or strong nancial results.

Niche Players
Niche Players in this market are not as strong in one or more of the following criteria: product
breadth/completeness or focus, geography, or number of customers. Although they may be a
good choice for a particular project, they are not well-suited as a broad platform for all types
of projects. Nevertheless, for specic scenarios an offering from a Niche Player may represent
the optimal choice.

Context

In a 2015 global Gartner survey on enterprise mobile app development, 34% of respondents
indicated that they use a MADP, while 11% use MBaaS products and 9% use one or more
RMAD tools. In addition to these platforms and tools, 90% of respondents indicated that native
SDKs are employed to build apps, while 44% also make use of open-source tools such as
Apache Cordova, JQuery Mobile, React Native and other frameworks. The reality is that mobile
app development in a complex enterprise environment requires a diverse portfolio of front-end
and back-end tools and services.
While a single MADP may not provide everything an enterprise needs, it can be used to bridge
systems of record to systems of innovation and enables a broader digital transformation
platform that includes cloud, the IoT and analytics. Enterprises that are more mature on the
mobile technology curve (such as those with more mobile end users or more open device
policies, for example) tend to adopt MADPs. However, this doesn't mean that these
enterprises have more mobile developers or even build the apps themselves. The use of
outsourced professional services from MADP vendors or from other service providers is still
prevalent, although the trend is toward more mixed sourcing and internal development through
the use of low-code or no-code tools in the platform.
After reviewing this research, application and IT leaders need to take the following actions:
If you don't already use a MADP, evaluate and deploy one if your organization is starting to
develop and deploy mobile apps at high volume (such as more than six apps per year). A
MADP will provide uniformity across app projects and enable a more scalable infrastructure
for back-end mobile app services, as well as higher productivity for front-end development.
If you already use a MADP (either listed in this Magic Quadrant or not) and are thinking of
switching providers, consider whether it may be better to supplement the missing
functionality by adding RMAD tools or MBaaS offerings. The cost of switching from one
MADP to another could be high, depending on the amount of custom integration to
proprietary mobile middleware and custom client-side logic and UI work on the platform.
Make sure the RMAD and/or MBaaS tools can easily integrate with your existing MADP.
If you use a MADP that no longer meets your needs or that you feel may not be viable, start
evaluating other platforms not just on current needs but also on future app requirements
12 to 18 months out, which may include wearable technologies and other IoT smart objects.
You may want to pick a platform that offers similar technologies (such as the use of
Cordova) or supports similar skill sets (such as JavaScript development), but don't lock
yourself into these existing needs if your app requirements have outgrown them.
If you use a MADP and are happy with it, you still need to assess its capabilities and
roadmap features at least every six to 12 months to make sure that it continues to align with
your organization's expectations and plans. Every three to four years, new signicant
devices and OSs tend to disrupt the MADP market because architectures and standards are
affected.

Market Overview

Mobile app development is at the forefront of digital business transformation strategies.

Mobile apps are driving new compelling interactions, profound business model innovation (or
renovation), and deep insights to improve business processes and workows. Once an
organization starts building and delivering mobile apps, demand across the enterprise
inevitably grows. This potentially disruptive situation typically leads application and IT leaders
to evaluate and adopt MADPs for the purpose of unifying, governing and scaling mobile app
development activities.
MADPs serve four critical functions in this regard.
1. The platform offers a front-end development tool or IDE that increases productivity for
multiplatform (devices and OSs) and multichannel (web, apps, wearables) development.
2. The platform enables integration into multiple back-end systems and data sources,
creating mobile-optimized RESTful APIs and allowing for the orchestration and
management of these reusable APIs across many apps.
3. The platform provides core mobile back-end services, such as ofine synchronization
and conict resolution, push notications, geolocation services, authentication and
certicate/token management, and le storage; these services are crucial building
blocks for every single app.
4. The platform serves as the central hub for the life cycle management of apps,
supporting UI design collaboration, build services, continuous integration, version
management, test automation, deployment and release management, and analytics all
with either built-in functionality or through third-party integration.
As mobile development converges with traditional web and desktop development, MADPs are
continuing to evolve rapidly to be not just silos for mobile app development. Indeed, nearly all
of the MADP vendors listed this year can build apps for desktop and web, as well as mobile, in
the same tool. In a couple of years, mobile app development will morph into general-purpose
app development.
To achieve this metamorphosis, these three important principles must be addressed in the
MADP.
Decoupling back-end and front-end development A MADP offers a full stack approach to
app development, but the app use cases across an enterprise are so diverse that a single
front-end development tool cannot effectively address them all. The MADP must therefore
open up its back-end and integration services to be consumable by other front-end
development tools, frameworks and IDEs that are more suitable for specic app use cases.
This decoupling means that a MADP will overlap with MBaaS, aPaaS and API management
products in providing the underlying mobile or digital services layer for development. This
decoupling also is a way to address digital transformation using a bimodal IT approach (see
"Adopt a Bimodal Approach to Mobile App Development Strategy" ).
Embracing open source and standards In the early years of smartphone mobile app
development, standards were virtually nonexistent and proprietary languages and
frameworks were the norm. Now the tide has turned. If a MADP does not embrace

standards-based technologies (such as HTML5, JavaScript or OData) and open-source

software (such as Apache Cordova, Appium, or Node.js), it may not be able to keep pace
with changes in the market or foster broad developer community support for the platform.
The use of proprietary technology also causes vendor lock-in and, therefore, difculty in
migrating off a MADP.
Enabling self-service development MADPs have traditionally served professional
developers (such as programmers and coders), but app development is becoming
democratized with more tools adopting visual or model-driven app building paradigms. This
trend is inuenced by the RMAD market, where simplicity and speed are the mantras and
citizen developers (such as business analysts, line-of-business professionals and
application administrators) are the practitioners. App development mobile and otherwise
is increasingly initiated and supported by constituents outside IT, so MADPs must adapt
to enable this self-service mode of development.

Acronym Key and Glossary Terms

aPaaS

application platform as a service

B2C

business-to-consumer

BPM

business process management

IDE

integrated development environment

IoT

the Internet of Things

MADP

mobile app development platform

MBaaS

mobile back end as a service

OData

Open Data Protocol

RMAD

rapid mobile app development

SDK

software development kit

UI

user interface

UX

user experience

Note 1
Pricing
To provide guidance to organizations about pricing for different MADP offerings, Gartner has
dened a coarse-grained three-tier structure, as follows:

A low-cost tier of less than $25,000 per year for an initial mobile development project
A midrange tier of between $25,000 and $100,000 per year
An enterprise tier of more than $100,000 per year

Note 2
Vendors Considered
Adobe, Alpha Software, AnyPresence, Appcelerator, Appery.io, appsFreedom, Appian,
Backbase, BlinkMobile, Catavolt, ClickSoftware, DSI, EachScape, Embarcadero, i-exceed, IBM,
Kinvey, Kony, Mendix, Microsoft, MicroStrategy, MobileFrame, Movilizer, Oracle, OutSystems,
Pegasystems, Progress, Red Hat, Retriever Communications, Salesforce, SAP, Webalo,
WebRatio, Xamarin, Zebra.

Evaluation Criteria Denitions

Ability to Execute
Product/Service: Core goods and services offered by the vendor for the dened market. This
includes current product/service capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills and so on, whether
offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as dened in the market denition
and detailed in the subcriteria.
Overall Viability: Viability includes an assessment of the overall organization's nancial health,
the nancial and practical success of the business unit, and the likelihood that the individual
business unit will continue investing in the product, will continue offering the product and will
advance the state of the art within the organization's portfolio of products.
Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor's capabilities in all presales activities and the structure
that supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation, presales
support, and the overall effectiveness of the sales channel.
Market Responsiveness/Record: Ability to respond, change direction, be exible and achieve
competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act, customer needs evolve and
market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the vendor's history of responsiveness.
Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity and efcacy of programs designed to
deliver the organization's message to inuence the market, promote the brand and business,
increase awareness of the products, and establish a positive identication with the
product/brand and organization in the minds of buyers. This "mind share" can be driven by a
combination of publicity, promotional initiatives, thought leadership, word of mouth and sales
activities.
Customer Experience: Relationships, products and services/programs that enable clients to
be successful with the products evaluated. Specically, this includes the ways customers
receive technical support or account support. This can also include ancillary tools, customer
support programs (and the quality thereof), availability of user groups, service-level
agreements and so on.

Operations: The ability of the organization to meet its goals and commitments. Factors
include the quality of the organizational structure, including skills, experiences, programs,
systems and other vehicles that enable the organization to operate effectively and efciently
on an ongoing basis.
Completeness of Vision
Market Understanding: Ability of the vendor to understand buyers' wants and needs and to
translate those into products and services. Vendors that show the highest degree of vision
listen to and understand buyers' wants and needs, and can shape or enhance those with their
added vision.
Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently communicated
throughout the organization and externalized through the website, advertising, customer
programs and positioning statements.
Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling products that uses the appropriate network of direct
and indirect sales, marketing, service, and communication afliates that extend the scope and
depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the customer base.
Offering (Product) Strategy: The vendor's approach to product development and delivery that
emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology and feature sets as they map to current
and future requirements.
Business Model: The soundness and logic of the vendor's underlying business proposition.
Vertical/Industry Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to
meet the specic needs of individual market segments, including vertical markets.
Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources, expertise or
capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or pre-emptive purposes.
Geographic Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet
the specic needs of geographies outside the "home" or native geography, either directly or
through partners, channels and subsidiaries as appropriate for that geography and market.

(http://gtnr.it/MQR-MobileAD)
2016 Gartner, Inc. and/or its afliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner,
Inc. or its afliates. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Gartner's
prior written permission. If you are authorized to access this publication, your use of it is subject to the
Usage Guidelines for Gartner Services (/technology/about/policies/usage_guidelines.jsp) posted on
gartner.com. The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be
reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information
and shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in such information. This publication
consists of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of
fact. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Gartner provides information
technology research and advisory services to a wide range of technology consumers, manufacturers and
sellers, and may have client relationships with, and derive revenues from, companies discussed herein.
Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal
advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company,
and its shareholders may include rms and funds that have nancial interests in entities covered in Gartner
research. Gartner's Board of Directors may include senior managers of these rms or funds. Gartner
research is produced independently by its research organization without input or inuence from these rms,
funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see
"Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity.
(/technology/about/ombudsman/omb_guide2.jsp)"

About (http://www.gartner.com/technology/about.jsp)
Careers (http://www.gartner.com/technology/careers/)
Newsroom (http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/)
Policies (http://www.gartner.com/technology/about/policies/guidelines_ov.jsp)
Privacy (http://www.gartner.com/privacy)
Site Index (http://www.gartner.com/technology/site-index.jsp)
IT Glossary (http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/)
Contact Gartner (http://www.gartner.com/technology/contact/contact_gartner.jsp)